Human 'eaten by alligator' as cops discover huge beast surrounded by blood
The authorities are investigating a body found near a residential neighbourhood in Florida — they believe the deceased may have been mauled to death by an alligator.
Terrifying pictures and videos show law enforcement officers standing around a giant alligator covered in blood, which also splatters the ground around it. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office believes the beast may have been responsible for the man's death, 10 Tampa Bay reported.
The sheriff's office and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are investigating the incident. The body was reportedly found at about 2pm local time on Friday near 121st Street and Ulmerton Road in Ridgecrest Park, Florida.
A giant alligator may have mauled a Florida man to death on Friday, gruesome video showsRidgecrest Park has a large lake nearby, where the massive beast may have slithered from. One neighbor described hearing a gunshot around the time the authorities arrived to check out the scene. She assumed it was a shot dispatching the massive creature.
"A lot of my neighbours were out here, and they're the ones that told me about the gator," Jennifer Dean told Bay News 9. She said the beast was the largest she had ever seen — and she said there are lots of alligators in the area, too.
Alligator spotted with jaws taped shut and struggling before being rescued
One local took to Twitter, now X, and posted pictures of the scene she was viewing on local news channels, writing: "Alligator loaded onto truck. Sadly, we did see from chopper a human body pulled by divers from the canal."
The authorities are still investigating the death, and it remains unclear whether or not the alligator killed the man or if he had already been dead and the beast was simply feeding on his corpse. It's also unclear what happened to the alligator itself, aside from it being loaded onto a truck and taken away.
The authorities dragged the gator onto a truck and took it away (Spectrum News WS)Friday's incident comes just two months after an elderly woman was mauled to death in a South Carolina neighbourhood by an alligator while she was out walking her dog. The beast proceeded to guard the 69-year-old's corpse.
The creature was later relocated, taken away from the scene but not killed. A similar policy is implemented in Florida under the FCC's Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program (SNAP).
Alligators over 4 feet in length that prowl residential or developed areas are generally considered a nuisance, and SNAP will remove them by using highly trained trappers. Then, the gators are relocated to remote areas when possible.
In other cases, the animals are euthenised. But with 1.3 million gators living in the state, the FWC said the removal of one "does not have a significant impact on our state's alligator population."
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